John's Blog

It seems that out in the Parkland at Croft, almost every time some one sticks a spade in the ground something unusual is unearthed. On this occasion it was a case of curiosity; what was meant on an 18th century maps of the Fishpool Valley, where it stated the existence of a ‘Conduit’? A cursory search identified some old red tiles on the surface and Stephen Wass (Archaeologist) asked us to do a little clearing of all the brush and fallen branches that had dropped into a gully where all these tile seemed to have collected.

Stephen spotted an area he was interested in. Down here chaps, can you clear all this brushwood away please.

With a will we set about the task of cutting away all the brash and underneath we could now see some old ceramic tiles on the stream bed..

Soon the gully was cleared and we had time to explore a little more to see what was further up the gully.

A little further up the gully Julie came across what she described as a pile of bricks and stone. We scrambled up and pulling back a large hand full of moss, uncovered what appeared to be a well built stone wall.

With the undergrowth cleared away there was obviously some structure under all the soil., but we needed that old rotting tree trunk out of the way.

With a tree trunk moved out of the way we could now try and find out what it was we had come across.

All that happened back in May (2019) and it wasn’t until July (2019) that we had another opportunity to set to work once more. We had two weeks to see if we could identify what it was that we had found.

With a care to preserve all that we found we slowly dug through what seem to be a big heap of rubble.

Some old locally made bricks, stone roof tiles, bits of roof slate, and loads of soil.

All removed one bucket at a time to the upper part of the gully and put to one side.

After three days of digging and clearing way the stone and brick we were all trying to guess what it was that we had uncovered. Initially there was speculation that it might have been a cold Bath or Plunge Pool

It seemed as if a square shaped structure, possibly a building of some sort had collapsed.

By the middle of the first week Stephen was still not sure what it was we were working on.

As we dug down it seemed that it might have been some form of pool.

We pulled out old Stone roof tiles, Slate Tiles and even Ceramic tiles but there was no sign of the remains of any roof structure. Week two and we were still going down as well as looking to the surrounding area; what ever it was there must be some access route to it, but that wasn’t too obvious either.

Whilst some were working at digging down into the main structure others were excavating above the structure for evidence of access or water supply.

More excavating took place along the side and below the structure for evidence of access, water flow and part of the collapsed lower wall..

Inside the walled structure was a surrounding platform that looked as if it might be the entry to central square that might have contained water. more and more stones, bricks and slates came up and the centre got deeper and deeper.

Could there be some steps leading into this square space?

No steps but now we have a lead pipe protruding from the upper wall.

With the lead pipe un-bunged, cleared water is now beginning to fill the tank.

The idea that it would have contained water came about when we uncovered what seemed to be an outlet channel; as we went further down a lead inlet pipe was uncovered, once unblocked the stone tank began to fill with spring water.

Mal began to prod around on the lower wall and suddenly the level of the water in the tank began to reduce and gushed out of the lower wall and into the stream below. We now had water coming in and going out of the Tank and the following morning having done a little more excavation the previous day, the water in the water tank was now crystal clear and flowing nicely.

Throughout the excavation Stephen along with his assistant Sarah measured, recorded and labelled points of interest and items we found amongst the rubble.

Stephen taking more measurements.

Sarah recording, meticulously, a drawing of all the stone work.

The sessions of excavation have now ended, we think for this year at least, what happens next is, I guess, dependant upon what decision is taken regarding the future of this curiosity. It seems as though it is a Conduit and not a Cold Bath or Plunge Pool; a source of fresh water held in a well constructed stone tank, but for who? How was it accessed and what did it look like? More questions that might be answered with more excavation.

After two weeks of excavation the view from above the structure.

Water now flows through the tank and down into the Fishpool Valley.

The view looking from below the structure, up the gully at the collapsed lower wall.

For now the site has been left open and fenced off. I think there is still a lot more we can uncover; so watch this blog page to see what happens next.